privacy

Facebook may be the natural home of over-sharing, but new Facebook Login options mean users now have more granular control over what third-party apps can know about them. Announced at F8 2014, the amended "Log in with Facebook" option will now serve up an "Edit the info you provide" link, where tweaks to exactly what gets passed over from your profile can be made. However, while the new feature may have been a year in the making, it's not a complete fix for online privacy.

As one of several new means of combating abuse on their social network, Twitter is bringing on phone number verification for users. This system will not require that every Twitter verify their account using a phone number, but would potentially have some users required to verify their account or risk having said account destroyed entirely. Twitter is also enacting a feature which hides abusive Tweets from those that abused users do not follow. Abuse, Twitter hopes, will soon be a thing of the past - or it'll be hidden from view, at least.

Today Twitter is updating their Policy and Product outlines to further combat abuse on their social networking platform. This comes just one day after Twitter announced that they'd be opening the proverbial gates to more Personal Messaging between users, creating a feature update which needed to be turned on to be used. Today, Twitter updates their violent threats policy as well as expanding their coverage of suspected abusive Tweets. In short - Twitter isn't taking this whole "public abuse" thing sitting down - they want you to feel safe and comfortable in their social networking environment.

The NSA isn't interested in a sneaky back door into your smartphone or computer any more, it just wants you to leave the front door wide open. While arguments continue around just what the National Security Agency can and can't get access to - dragging more than one big tech name into the controversy - the spy organization's chief is suggesting a far more blunt approach: in effect, handing over the keys to encryption upfront.

Late last month, Facebook was accused of tracking users and non-users alike, and as such was said to be in violation of European law. The information came from a study commissioned by the Belgian Privacy Commission, and earlier this week Facebook fired back at the accusations, saying the report was wrong in more than one way. The social network posted a long statement by the company’s Vice President of Policy in Europe, Richard Allan, who tackled each claim individually.

AT&T has paid $25 million to settle a case with the Federal Communications Commission, it has been announced. The reason revolves around a privacy breach concerning the service provider, which is said to have had confidential customer data leaked via its call center workers to third-party resellers. The reason was so that the resellers could unlock the used phones they acquired, according to the FCC. This is said to have included some pretty serious data disclosures, including giving away subscribers' Social Security numbers.

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver just did a bang-up job showing off the newest in government surveillance law in the United States. Such a bang-up job, in fact, that the YouTube release of the 33-minute segment has garnered nearly 3-million views in less than two days. As Oliver explains, no one cared about the government surveillance program known as the Patriot Act for the first decade it was active, authorized, and re-authorized after it was enacted following September 11, 2001. Fast forward to June of 2013 and Edward Snowden infamously revealed the goings-on of the NSA - fast forward to 2015 and John Oliver is interviewing Edward Snowden.

Early last year, it was revealed the Department of Homeland Security was seeking a Federal License Plate Reader Database, something that was later abandoned in light of privacy concerns. Now the DHS has changed its mind and is again pursuing such a national database, soliciting bids from those who could provide it with such a product. The reason for its return is the department's belief it can now mitigate those aforementioned privacy worries. To prove it, DHS has published a report detailing the info.

Snapchat has joined the roster of tech companies that are releasing information on government data requests. Today on its blog, the service announced the arrival of its first Transparency Report, which lays out numbers on the data requests it has received from governments located around the globe, as well as the types of requests these numbers represent. In addition, Snapchat has said it will be releasing new transparency reports bi-annually. As with other companies, there are some limitations on what it is allowed to report and when it can release certain info.

Verizon Wireless is finally letting users completely opt out of its tracking program which uses undeletable tracking codes called "supercookies". Prior to this, customers no longer received targeted advertizing after opting out from Verizon's data collection program. Still, customers' browsing history and metadata was being stored by Verizon. Under its data collection program, Verizon tracks personal data by tagging customers with a unique customer identifier code. This "supercookie" code was un-removable under Verizon's previous opt-out policy wherein users could halt the gathering of their browsing habits, but they would still be tagged with a customer identifier code. Now, users can ask Verizon to remove their customer ID code supercookie.